by Chuck Wendig
Steven says, “You’re sure it was them who set your house on fire?”
“Who else?” Atlanta shrugs. “The timing’s a little weird, otherwise.”
Nods all around.
Downstairs, a doorbell.
Atlanta stands up. “She’s here. Hold on.”
She heads downstairs, answers the door, comes back up.
This time, with Bee in tow.
Bee, arm in a sling. The bruises on her face are now more the ghosts of bruises—dark purple gone to sickly yellow, fading into her skin.
“Bee, the group. Group, the Bee.” She names everyone as Bee takes a seat on the floor. Shane shakes her hand like it’s a business meeting.
“Welcome to the Pennsylvania Trade Commission,” he says, affecting a stuffy white-guy voice. “You will be a valued, uh, added member of our team.”
Bee gives a quizzical smirk, and Josie says: “He’s just being weird.”
“He’s good at weird,” Atlanta says.
“I am Groot,” Shane says.
“See?”
Bee smiles, apparently nervous. “So. Um. Hey.”
“You’re pregnant,” Josie says with awkward awe.
“I guess.”
“Can you feel it moving around?”
“Not really. Sometimes I get a little flutter but I think it’s just, like, indigestion or something.”
“Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
Bee laughs an anxious laugh. “Wow, twenty questions. I don’t. I think they’re supposed to tell me at twenty weeks if they can get a good ultrasound. Right now, it’s just a little . . . peapod. God, bigger than that, I guess. An apple?”
Suddenly, Shane blurts out: “Atlanta’s going to cause trouble with the Carrizos.”
Atlanta stares at him, cross. “Dude. What, because Kyle’s not here now you’re gonna be the one who can’t keep his trap shut?” To Bee, she says: “That’s why I brought you here. I wanted you to know what I was doing so . . . none of it surprises you in case there’s any blowback.”
“We don’t want her to do it,” Shane says.
“This is kind of an intervention,” Josie says.
Atlanta cocks an eyebrow. “What now?”
They all turn toward her.
Shane says: “Atlanta, you have to stop this. We’re your friends and you have to . . . not be you. Or something.”
“That’s so not it,” Josie says, and gives him an arm punch. “For someone so articulate you can’t articulate crap. Atlanta, we’re just worried. I’m only now getting to know you, but I think you’re cool as hell, and if you get hurt or get dead . . .”
“Think about Chris,” Shane says.
“I am thinking about Chris,” Atlanta snaps. “I’m thinking about him, and you, and Bee, and all of us. I know I shouldn’t go around stirring up the mud, but who else is gonna? The cops? Not likely. Teachers? Uh, nope. Our parents? Not that I can see. Everyone else is content to keep their head down so it doesn’t get shot off, but, man, shit sucks out there. And it sucks because we got monsters, human monsters, who wanna do us harm, and nobody has the salt to do something about it. But I’m all salt. I’m a salt and vinegar potato chip.”
Steven says: “We care about you.”
She sighs. “That’s sweet. It is. I just . . .” She looks to Bee. Sees Bee giving her a look. A kind of plucky, know-it-all face. “Oh, don’t give me that. I know what you’re going to say. You agree with these knuckleheads.”
“Nope,” Bee says. “I don’t.”
They all stare like she’s betrayed each of them personally.
She shrugs. “I’m changing my mind. Someone drove into me, could’ve killed me, killed my baby. Someone burned down her house. Killed Samantha. They’re doing things to girls that turns my stomach and should be turning yours. Besides. I’ve known Atlanta longer than all of you—” And here Shane makes an annoyed face. “And once she has her mind set, nothing we do will change it. She’s like a dog chasing a car.” She shrugs. “Only thing we can do is either get out of her way, or give her a hand. Otherwise, we’re just yelling at clouds.”
Atlanta grins. “Thanks, Bee.”
“Is there a plan?”
Atlanta nods. “Yep.”
“Good. So what do you need from us?”
That night, she lies in the sleeping bag—a pretty cozy one, truth be told—next to Josie’s bed.
“You tell your parents?” Atlanta says abruptly.
“You mean, did I come out to them yet?”
“Yeah.”
“Nooooo. Hah. No way. Not yet. Maybe never.”
“That sucks.”
“I love them both dearly, but they’re pretty . . . conservative.”
“Sorry.”
“Maybe one day.”
“Yeah.” More time passes. “I sometimes think I could be gay.”
“Really?”
“I mean, no, not really, but, like, I’m into fishing and I used to watch baseball and racing, and I’m kind of a tomboy, in case you haven’t noticed. Even in elementary school I had some guys make fun of me, calling me lezzie.”
“Those kinds of people will always find a way to make fun of you. I used to have guys make fun of the way that I chewed food.”
“That’s dumb.”
“Hella dumb.” Josie rolls over. Atlanta can feel her peering down at her through the darkness. “Everybody’s a little gay, I think.”
“You’re more than a little gay, though, right?”
“I’m a lot gay. And I’ve always known. Even when I didn’t want to admit it, I’ve always known.”
“I don’t know what I like or who I am. I mean, I like guys, but not that much.” She chuckles. “I think that’s because most of them seem to be shitheads.”
“They kinda do.”
“You don’t think of me in a gay way, do you?”
“What?”
“I just mean—I always wondered, do you look at straight girls and think, oh, wow, look at her?”
“Not really. I dunno. I want people who would want me.” She sighs. “Pretty is pretty, though, so I appreciate pretty. But I don’t want straight girls. I don’t think. Seems weird. I might as well be attracted to a lawn chair.”
“I’m starting to think lawn chair is the way to go.”
They laugh.
Then they’re quiet again for a while. Atlanta wonders if she’s about to fall asleep. She’s still awake, but it’s not like it was in the old farmhouse—it’s not anxiety, really. Mostly just thoughts running laps in her head. Here she feels . . . safe. Why, she doesn’t really know.
Suddenly, Josie says: “You going to be okay through all of this?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s not a real comforting answer.”
“Life doesn’t offer up a lot of those.”
“No, I guess not. Good night.”
“’Night.”
She startles him without meaning to. Atlanta’s standing behind one of the fire engines, just kicking stones, when Paul comes around the corner.
“Jesus!” he says. He clutches his chest like he’s having a heart attack, then he laughs. “Atlanta.”
“Paul,” she says, her voice as dark and cold as a river in winter.
“What’s up? Everything okay with your mom and you? You guys have a place to stay? Because you always know—”
“I’ve got a place and Mama’s staying with a friend from the Karlton.”
“Oh. That’s good.”
She sees the disappointment on his face. Not her problem.
“Hey, can we talk somewhere?” she asks. “Little more private?”
He nods, says, “Sure. Follow me.”
Behind the firehouse, about a hundred yards out, is a small asphalt lot—burn marks all over it, black like the Devil’s footprints. A ring of stones in the middle for a firepit. A small standing concrete-block structure that’s meant, she guesses, to simulate a house. A training area, by the look of it.
“I can’t do that,” he says finally. “I can’t help you.”
“I don’t need much. I just need you to get me in.”
“Atlanta, this is . . . I don’t know what this is all about, but I can’t just sneak you into that banquet. I don’t even work that site. I work the wells. You’re talking about a different location.”
She says, “I know where it is and what it looks like. I had Shane look into it. They’re doing a kind of Oktoberfest thing there, in the parking lot of the office building. But that’s also where they have the garage and a lot for the tanker trucks, and they keep most of the gas there, right?”
“In big tanks, yeah. These clusters of four tanks a pop. Drive from the wells across the tricounty area, fill up the tanks, then other trucks pull from the tanks to do fill-ups or send the gas to neighboring states.”
“So, they’d still let you on site.”
“They would. But—”
“You ever get the sense that something shady is going on there?”
He doesn’t say anything. Which says a whole lot.
Atlanta keeps on him. “I’m telling you this knowing that you’ve already broken my trust, and I’m making my own bet here that it means you won’t break that trust again. Because you do that, this bridge we’re rebuilding will go up in a column of howling flames. You digging up what I’m burying?”
“I don’t know what you think is going on there—”
“They’re hurting girls. Young girls. Using them for sex. Plus they got the gambling thing going, and I know some of the guys buy pills, and from what I hear, there may be more going on, too. I don’t know how far it goes, but I know some very important people are going to be there. Senators and other business folks and even some of Penn State’s muckity-mucks.”
“So call the cops.”
“I need something solid first.”
“And that’s where I come in.”
She pleads: “Just get me on site. That’s it. Then you can wash your hands of it. And here, I’m gonna make another bet: I’ll bet that who you’re in hock to is someone there, maybe even Ty Carrizo himself. Am I right?”
Once again, Paul’s silence speaks volumes.
“You let me handle this, maybe that debt disappears when he goes to prison. That means you’re off that hook.”
A moment of relief shines in his eyes, but it’s over quick. “Then I’m out of a job.”
“Not necessarily. Carrizo’s just the CFO, yeah? That’s not, like, the head of the company, right?”
“No. That’d be the CEO, Bill Lockhart. And there’s a whole board, too.”
“So. You in?”
He pops his lips, drums his fingers on the ring of stones. “Who’s to say I won’t rat you out to the cops? I could call them, tell them about this conversation.”
“You could. And maybe you will. But like I said, then that bridge between us, narrow and broken as it is, will be forever done. And you won’t get much out of it. You’ll still have your debt. But the status quo is powerful, I guess.”
Paul winces. The face of a man making an uncomfortable decision.
“You’re good at this. Whatever this is,” he says.
“So, you in?”
“I’m in,” he says.
PART FOUR:
FRACK YOU
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The truck bounces beneath her. Paul’s pickup must have a bunch of old Dixie cups for suspension, because it’s not absorbing a single one of the shocks from the potholes on the road. Every hit sends a vibration up her spine like someone just kicked her dead square on her tailbone.
She hides in the back under a blanket.
Next to her: the .410 shotgun. Paul doesn’t know it’s back here with her—he’s on her side for now, but if she showed him there’s a gun in play, she knows that would change. She had to sneak it into the back of his truck before she rang his doorbell that morning. But now it’s here, and she is, too.
Pockets full of little green shotshells.
Eventually the truck slows down. Paul knocks on the back window, which is the sign: they’re here. Not in the facility yet, but at the front gate.
Front gate means a big metal bar that raises or lowers. A guard booth.
She peels back the blanket, listens. The old guard is saying to Paul, “I don’t see you on the list. You don’t usually work here, do you?”
Paul says, “No, I usually work the Mahoning well.”
“I’m gonna have to call this one in—”
Shit.
“Hold up, hold up,” Paul says with a nervous laugh. “Confession time: I’m filling in for somebody. You know Dave Filbert?” Before the guard can answer, Paul adds, “Dave tied one on last night real good and he’s not here for work, but he’s already got two demerits and a third means his ass is grass and VLS is the lawn mower. You call that in, Dave’s done for. And I might be, too.”
Silence.
It isn’t working.
Atlanta tries to come up with a new plan. Hopefully they at least let Paul’s truck in through the gate, and when they . . . detain him or whatever happens, she’ll sneak out the back and keep everything on track—
The old guard laughs, a cigar-smoke chuckle.
“Okay. I’ll just write Dave Filbert in here. Kosher?”
“As a Jewish deli.”
Another knock on the window.
And the truck pushes on in to the facility.
Atlanta peers over the edge of the pickup truck bed as it drives on through. The office building is ahead—and sure enough, in the parking lot they’re setting up for the banquet, with tables and tents and strung-up lights (though it’s day now, so none of them are on). From a catering truck, people are bringing out burners and Crock-Pots. A little stage is already set up with a couple speakers. A few standing radiant heaters (that look like some of the robots in Star Wars) sit off to the side.
If Shane’s map is right, it’s a quarter-mile drive down the gravel road to the tanks, the garage, and the truck lot.
They wanted to come, of course—Shane and the others. Wanted to be in on it, go along on her misadventure. But she told them no good would come of them all getting hurt. Besides, sneaking one girl in here is pretty easy. Sneaking a whole crew of idiots? Not easy at all. That means it’s just her, and that means they have the job of giving her information, being her eyes, her ears, and above all else, her brain.
Most of this is Shane’s plan, to be honest.
Bless his little well-groomed ass.
He said it’d be smarter to sneak in during the day than closer to night—night rolls around and everyone will be on eggshells, thinking about impressing senators and keeping that security straight. Daytime, it’s easy.
Just another workday.
Good.
Paul pulls the truck down the road. She keeps her eyes peeled, ducks anytime a tanker or other car passes on the left.
Soon as they get close to what she thinks must be the garage, she sees her opportunity, the one Shane circled on the blurry diagram he printed out—satellite photo from Google Maps. The truck has to round the bend behind the garage, and there Paul slows—she hops out over the side, and sees the perfect cover. Stacks of tires and wooden pallets. Shotgun in hand, she gives a tap on Paul’s truck. As she goes to duck behind the tires—
—Paul’s brake lights come on.
He sees her. In the side mirror.
His mouth is wide. His eyes, squinting.
He whips his head around, probably to check if it’s just a trick of his eyes or if she’s really carrying a shotgun—
Nope, nope, she’s really carrying a shotgun. She can see the look on his face when he realizes it. She shrugs, gives a wave, then shoos him on his way.
Don’t mess this up, Paul.
Don’t yo
u dare.
He starts to reverse the truck, and she drags a finger across her throat which is maybe a more threatening gesture than she intends it to be. She means it as, You come any closer, you’re gonna kill the whole deal, but it probably comes across like, I’ll kill you.
Either way, he stops.
Truck idling.
Looks like he curses silently, then pulls ahead.
Whew.
Atlanta’s in.
The plan is this:
Atlanta remains hidden. Hidden for hours, in fact, until five p.m. Normally, this facility is never shut down—the trucks move twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. But today is different. Today is the banquet. Can’t have loud tanker trucks driving past the stage, making people smell their exhaust as they eat their knockwurst or chili or whatever else they’re serving down there. Paul said that today, the trucks stop running at five, and they don’t pick back up until midnight.
Hiding isn’t too hard. She ducks in through an open door in the back. The garage isn’t busy. Already it seems like they’re winding down for the day. One truck up on the rack, and nobody’s even working on it.
Atlanta finds a corner of the garage, hides behind an old rack of what look like propane tanks, the kind you might use for a gas grill (though she’s reminded of how her daddy always said that a gas grill was no grill at all, and it was charcoal briquettes or nothing if you wanted a good burger, dog, or steak).
And there, she waits.
Time passes like dripping honey. Steady. But slow, too slow.
Her mind wanders there in the dark behind the tanks. She misses her daddy. Worries for Mama. Worries for herself, too. And here she starts to think the same way she guesses lots of folks do when they’re in an anxious position—she starts chewing on her future. Not much of a future at all now. Her money’s gone. Her grades are so bad she might as well flush ’em. Dang, even if she had the money—what was she thinking? She’d hop on a bus and head out to a life somewhere? Bagging at Walmart? Promoted to checkout girl? No harm, no foul to those who wanna do that or don’t have much choice, but she never really saw herself wearing that little vest and running cat food or diapers over a scanner.
